How good/bad/useful are laser pointers for Zeroing?

[dhunt]

A friend of mine has a cool red laser-pointer throwing crosshairs on his SB table.

Seems these cool gadgets are not particularly expensive - $40?
How truly useful are they?

Most comment on the subject I've found (in Archives) dates back five years
so I'm wondering what the state of art...of thinking is.. re. these wonderful gadgets.. today in 2011
now you guys have had a chance to mess around with them

Are they as wonderful as they look?
Does any particular make/model stand head and shoulders above the crowd?
How to get power to them? (batteries inside the unit?)

[knight_toolworks]

you have to use an offset to use one and the beams are pretty big. if you just want to use it to find an edge it is ok. but I use a laser to find a corer and show me where a cut would be to relocate material when needed.
http://www.lasercenteredgefinder.com/main.html

[dhunt]

http://www.lasercenteredgefinder.com/main.html

That's a nice-lookin unit, but not cheap
(you get what you pay for?)

Thanks for the link -it's a start!

[myxpykalix]

I just went out and bought a cheap barrel type (like a pen) laser pointer for a few bucks at big lots or some place like that and chuck it up in my 1/2 collet.

But even that was a PITA to bother with so i don't use it much. It just shoots a dot not crosshairs.

[knight_toolworks]

I don't use it a lot anymore but if you use a lot of jigs or don't use a jig to locate material it is handy. it's handy to check to see if the material is square to the machine too.

[sailfl]

You can buy a small laser for under $5.00.

[Brady Watson]

As others have said - the beam gets to be too big to be useful. The other ones that chuck up into the router are okay - but may require a collet change.

I like a nice sharp v-bit - or better yet - the shank of a broken carbide or HSS tool that you sharpen to a nice sharp point.

-B

[bleeth]

I use a laser regularly as an installation tool in the field. After checking out what was available and comparing features I laid out sever hundred dollars for one from Pacific Laser. I chose it because it is accurate and true, as opposed to all available at the big box stores. You can't get a good laser for "a few bucks". The small cheap ones are good for presentation pointers and that's about it.

[nailzscott]

David,

Below is a link to the way I set mine up over a year ago. I had a job where I needed to cut out some pre-printed plastic signage - and I needed to be able to get within .010 to find the corner and align the sheet - before cutting. This setup worked great at the time, but in hind sight, I would do one thing different.

This setup was mounted to the router. Since the router creates a lot of vibration - over time the pointer would vibrate enough to create an error on zeroing. I intend on changing it some time using a bracket mounted to the same aluminum extrusion that the router is mounted onto. It will add a little more structure to my setup, but that area seems to minimize the vibration.

http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8419

[dhunt]

Above-mentioned friend sent me this link..

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/red-las...-16mm-5mw-5942
(turns out it's the same unit mentioned in Scott N's link, above..)

..says this is the one he got... for $3.95 ??
and apparently you can focus the thing too!


I'm thinking that -for $4- this unit can make a start even if it dies in six months
then buy something a lot better, having gained some experience with it..